


I Wondered What You Were

by Mercy



Series: Roadtripverse [10]
Category: Nathan Barley (TV)
Genre: Backstory, First Meetings, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Series, Pre-Slash, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-15
Updated: 2010-08-15
Packaged: 2017-11-02 16:16:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercy/pseuds/Mercy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Dan hears Jones's music.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Wondered What You Were

**Author's Note:**

> October 1997, prequel to _One Day We'll Look Back And..._. Originally posted at booshbattle [here](http://booshbattle.livejournal.com/8389.html?thread=1108421#t1108421).

Dan looks down at the wrinkled black bit of card that was pressed sweatily into his palm last night by...he didn't catch the kid's name, actually, and doesn't remember giving his own. Just talking about almost nothing, agreeing on even less but laughing at most of it, a dervish of electric blue and leopard print and too many bracelets on hands that kept touching him even once he'd said he didn't want to dance.

"Got a gig tomorrow. You should come." 

Silver marker pen, an address on one side and a 'J' on the other. He'd already told... 'J' that he was here to write about this and it wasn't getting a good review. He'd tried to hand the card back.

"Local reviews are full this month."

"That ain't why I'm asking. Free bar, 'f nothing else--you'll be my guest." 

Nuffink. Dan still can't work out if it's an affectation, but he suspects not. Or the whole thing could be an affectation, pretending not to care and hoping Dan will think he's brilliant and want to put him on the cover. It's happened before, and with far less charming characters. If it's act, it's a good one, smiles like glitter and laughter like Factory feedback, more interest in debating the finer points of the Danger Mouse episode where the washing machines revolt than in hammer-subtly hawking his supposed talent.

More to the point, if it's an act, it's worked. Dan's here, squinting up and down in not enough streetlamps between pocket-crumpled silver and chipped black numbers on a wall. It's one of those underground club nights that move around and change names like whims of fashion. Spray paint on cardboard staple-gunned to the weathered wooden door proclaims it UNSOUND.

It's almost a surprise that the door cooperates when he pulls the handle-- there should be a peephole and a password, possibly. He's hit with a wave of bass and electronic noise so strong he thinks he might be blasted back onto the pavement, but the wide-as-he-is-tall man he's collided with pulls him inside and jerks the door shut behind him. Glares him up and down, assessing, and says, "Five quid, mate."

"I've just got this," Dan says, and hands him the card.

Schoolroom thug wanting to force out dinner money becomes a jolly pink-faced grinning piglet...well, thug. "Alright!" He yanks Dan's hand towards him and scrawls some secret-code symbol onto the back of it that looks a bit like a lopsided heart. "Think Jones is starting in ten or so."

J is for Jones, then. Dan's grateful that the bowel-shaking electro-dub-god-knows-what isn't what he's meant to be here for. He finds the bar and starts getting them in, scanning the damp grotty basement for any faces he recognises. One in particular, but others too. There's a tragically-dreadlocked white girl he thinks he's seen peddling sloppy photocopied inkpen zines in front of the Duke, clearly off her head and dancing on some other plane of existence, but that's all. It's the usual collection of dyed heads and pierced faces, some what-the-fuck twats whose nose rings Dan would like to yank out, a couple of grown-into-dads old punks sat on the rickety stools.

The painful noise ends when Dan's into his second whiskey, a staggering cheer and then a few seconds of blessed silence before some vanilla techno starts up to fill the set break. Dan doesn't see Jones till he appears at the front, hefting a flight case nearly as big as he is onto the table that DJ Oh-god-what-was-that has just vacated. Either Dan's misremembering, or his hair has changed colour overnight-- the random chunks of blond in black are now red. The bracelets have multiplied and go halfway up his forearms, which are bare the rest of the way to the cut-off sleeves of his t-shirt despite the fact that it's nearly as cold in here as it is outside.

The way Dan feels about the music itself is a bit like the way he feels about Led Zeppelin (though it's nothing like Led Zeppelin). He can recognise the technical skill involved in making it, even if he doesn't particularly like it. He doesn't know much, but he's heard enough mediocre DJs with the same samples and the same tracks to know that those are conspicuously absent. This is glitches and hums and something like toy trains colliding, somehow combined to be more than just noise.

More of a crowd forms on the dance floor than Dan might have expected-- not a large one, but a few dozen, and they're enthusiastic. Jones is shouting back at them and pumping his fist in the air like it's a sea of thousands. Dan gets the feeling he'd do the same in an empty room. That more than the performance itself is what keeps Dan paying attention, a jealous fascination. Jones is happy to have an audience, but he's not doing it for them.

Jones looks over their heads and straight at Dan. He hadn't thought it possible for Jones's smile to get any bigger, but it does. The sparkle of magic is just the lights flashing off the sweat that's starting to plaster his hair down. The flush in Dan's cheeks and the swooping burn in his gut is just the whiskey kicking in.

"What'd you think?" Jones says after, when Dan's drifted up to the front without meaning to, close enough to see that the knobs and faders on the decks and mixer have all got little toys stuck to them, things out of Kinder eggs or happy meals or pulled off of dolls. His smile's gone a bit softer, and Dan wasn't misremembering the hair because the cuticle he's chewing on is stained red.

"You're good." It's the only honest thing he can say that might not be insulting. Dan wonders why he's worried about being insulting.

Jones laughs. "You hated it."

"It's not really my usual."

"Nah, guess I ain't much like Supergrass." Dan tries to remember if he ever mentioned where he worked. He must have done. Jones unhooks the last cable and wraps it around his wrist. "I gotta get my mate's van back to him, d'you want a lift home? Or not home, we can get kebabs or something."

"Why not."

Jones grins and shoves a crate of records into Dan's arms. He picks up his case and heads for the door, not looking back to see if Dan's going to follow.


End file.
